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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

The Search for True Love (Part 2)

Now that you understand the importance of flexibility of mind (like stretchable exercise pants), you must exercise that flexibility. You should do so by shifting your focus away from the external, or shifting your focus away from just searching. It is actually more important to first look inward before you look outward. In most cases where people end up having trouble finding the right person or not getting the right relationship, not starting inward is a major factor.

In searching for true love, you can’t just focus on the search and ignore other important factors (as I will go into in this blog series.) These factors (such as working on becoming a true listener and working on your core character) may seem unrelated, but they are crucial if you really want to land a true and lasting relationship.

Let me explain this with a money analogy. If you invest your money in stocks and bonds, do you just narrowly keep an eye on your accounts and nothing else? Or are you also continuously keeping up with information such as local news, global news, business news, tech news, and science news.

The unwise and less successful investor would probably say, “I don’t want to learn and keep up with all this information. They are not directly related to my investments.”

In the same way, the unwise ignore many indirect factors in their search for true love. There are many seemingly unrelated and indirectly related factors covered in this blog series. Other commonly neglected but crucial factors include: letting go of the past, not settling for less than what God has in store for you, working on yourself, working on something greater than yourself, understanding love in different forms, and establishing a divine connection.

The person who is conscientious in these seemingly unrelated areas covered in this blog series would be like the wise investor staying abreast of all information including the seemingly unrelated, indirectly related, and directly related.

Multi-cultural Wisdom from Generations

I previously mentioned the importance of being able to change the way you see and approach relationships as you are reading this blog series. If this led you to think that I am presenting completely new ways and perspectives, I am here to tell you that it is quite to the contrary. I will be presenting ways of seeing it that most people today are not accustomed to, but these perspectives and approaches are not completely new. They include long forgotten or neglected knowledge and wisdom about love and relationships. These are knowledge and wisdom learned from generations, consistent across various cultures and traditions from different parts of the world.

Truth is truth (whether you like it or not, and whether it feels good or not.) When people from one corner of the earth learned the same things as people from another corner of the world throughout different time periods and across different belief systems, you know they are true. When different people of different backgrounds learn the same lessons, you know they are true.

Let me give you an obvious analogy. The apparent principle of “you shall not murder” is known from many different traditions (consistent in many parts of the world throughout generations, across many different belief systems.)

It is consistent in teachings from Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and Confucianism to name the major traditions of many parts of the world.

Although some of my teachings in finding true love are also consistent with wisdom across cultures, they are not as obvious as “you shall not murder”, but they are just as true. It is my aim to make these truths apparent to you by the time you are done reading this blog series.

Not Having to Have

It was the year 2000 in San Francisco, California when Winston and Jack called me out for dinner on a Friday night. They called me out because we knew that all three of us single guys in our early 20's were suffering from some type of relationship blues.

Jack's girlfriend of three years left him for another guy, and he felt that his cure will come when he finds someone else. Winston at the time had never had a girlfriend in his life and he desperately wanted one. As for me, I at the time just came out of the most disastrous relationship I've ever had…